Setting thread priorities
public class Main {
/**
* Starts two threads and wait for them to finish.
*/
public void setPrioritiesOnThreads() {
Thread thread1 = new Thread(new TestThread(1));
Thread thread2 = new Thread(new TestThread(2));
thread1.start();
thread2.start();
try {
//Wait for the threads to finish
thread1.join();
thread2.join();
} catch (InterruptedException ex) {
ex.printStackTrace();
}
System.out.println("Done.");
}
/**
* Starts the program
*
* @param args the command line arguments
*/
public static void main(String[] args) {
new Main().setPrioritiesOnThreads();
}
class TestThread implements Runnable {
int id;
public TestThread(int id) {
this.id = id;
}
public void run() {
for (int i = 1; i <= 10; i++) {
System.out.println("Thread" + id + ": " + i);
}
}
}
}
Since both threads have the same priority, the output will be a mix between them and could look like this:
Thread2: 1
Thread1: 1
Thread2: 2
Thread1: 2
Thread2: 3
Thread1: 3
Thread2: 4
Thread1: 4
Thread2: 5
Thread1: 5
Thread2: 6
Thread1: 6
Thread2: 7
Thread2: 8
Thread2: 9
Thread2: 10
Thread1: 7
Thread1: 8
Thread1: 9
Thread1: 10
Done.
The output could look different from on execution to another since we have no control of how the CPU will prioritize them.
If we set the priority on the threads we still haven't got exact control of the execution, but at least we can tell the CPU which one we think is
most important. The next example is identical to the one above except for the lines where the priority of the threads are set:
public class Main {
/**
* Starts two threads, setting priorities on them
* and wait for them to finish.
*
*/
public void setPrioritiesOnThreads() {
Thread thread1 = new Thread(new TestThread(1));
Thread thread2 = new Thread(new TestThread(2));
//Setting priorities on the Thread objects
thread1.setPriority(Thread.MAX_PRIORITY);
thread2.setPriority(Thread.MIN_PRIORITY);
thread1.start();
thread2.start();
try {
//Wait for the threads to finish
thread1.join();
thread2.join();
} catch (InterruptedException ex) {
ex.printStackTrace();
}
System.out.println("Done.");
}
/**
* Starts the program
*
* @param args the command line arguments
*/
public static void main(String[] args) {
new Main().setPrioritiesOnThreads();
}
class TestThread implements Runnable {
int id;
public TestThread(int id) {
this.id = id;
}
public void run() {
for (int i = 1; i <= 10; i++) {
System.out.println("Thread" + id + ": " + i);
}
}
}
}
The output from the code looked like this when executed:
Thread1: 1
Thread1: 2
Thread1: 3
Thread1: 4
Thread1: 5
Thread1: 6
Thread1: 7
Thread1: 8
Thread1: 9
Thread1: 10
Thread2: 1
Thread2: 2
Thread2: 3
Thread2: 4
Thread2: 5
Thread2: 6
Thread2: 7
Thread2: 8
Thread2: 9
Thread2: 10
Done.
It is however not certain that the first thread will be prioritized to finish before the second thread starts every time.
It is, as mentioned earlier, up to the CPU to decide.
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